Homeschool History Book of Centuries: A Portable Timeline for Charlotte Mason and Classical Education Students: Volume 1 (Rethink Schooling)

We like this book, it’s great for history journaling, and I can see it was recently redesigned, as I purchased a slightly different looking copy before. However, and this is a polite note to the author also, it needs a correction, as there is no year 0 BC and AD 0. There is simply no year 0. It goes from 1 BC straight to AD 1. Please, if this could be corrected, so as not to confuse the children and not to spread the error… For us, and other parents who already own these books, we will just have to neatly cover the 0 and replace with a 1 in all our copies. Thank you.

I have used this book for several years now with my older children and am now purchasing one for my youngest. I love the format of this Book of Centuries, and it has proved invaluable to my children as they continue to add to it through the years, as it is a personal review of everything they have studied before. My boys in particular (9th and 3rd grade) delight in drawing hilarious cartoons of the characters and events they add, and then looking back and laughing and sharing over their cartoons from years before. This is one of my favorite elements of our homeschool years.

This Book of Centuries was so thoughtfully designed. The timeline format, with room above and below for entries, is so much more helpful than the list formats I've seen elsewhere. The defined historical eras are an added touch, and the timespan on each page differs as you move forward in history, giving you more space to include more modern events and not wasting too much space in the ancients, classical era, and middle ages, which typically have relatively less events to add. My son is starting 1st grade, and I can see this being an invaluable tool for the rest of his education. Our first entry was his birthday, and he is now reflecting historical events to his own time in history, putting everything in perspective. I will definitely be buying one of these for each of my younger children when they're ready!

So far I am loving this compared to the other options I looked at. We have started our studies around 1550AD and I believe the spacing will work well for our purpose. I plan to use this as our family book of centuries while they are little and maybe have them start their own in a more notebook fashion as they get bigger and start wanting to add a little more detail to their entries. Binding seems okay. If I had a choice I probably would have went for spiral binding and may still consider having this done at a local print shop.

If you are looking for an inexpensive, pull out as needed Book of Centuries for homeschool, this is a decent option. We have only used it for one week, and my biggest gripe so far is that 2 of the dates my son needed to write were dead center on the page where the spine is. He ended up having to write it off to the side. Not the biggest deal in the world, especially since you can basically make up where you want the years, but had we gone with a different option, that may have not been the case. I had planned on having him use this from now (5th grade) through the rest of his home education career, but I think I may want to try a different option. If you are like me, you may also prefer a spiral bound option. I didn't think this bound book would bother me, but as I said, one week in and I am already wishing I had chosen a different style.

A beautifully done timeline book, perfect for your children to record what they are learning. I absolutely love this and the price is very reasonable.